Teenage Robot Builders Get The Chance To Help NASA Shape The Future Of Space Exploration

This month, teens from over 30 countries traveled to St. Louis, Missouri for the 20th annual FIRST Robotics Championship. FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, was created to get children K-12 interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or S.T.E.M. subjects).

The robotics competition has a theme each year and this year's theme is recycling, and all participants were required to build robots that prominently used recyclable/reusable materials in their construction. Along with the FIRST Robotics Championship for high-school age students, there's the FIRST Tech Challenge for kids aged 7-12 and the FIRST LEGO League for kids aged 9-16, using robots built with LEGO Mindstorms parts.